January 2007 – Page 4 – Priscilla Spencer

January 9, 2007January 17, 2015

This semester is getting off to a promising start!

The Good:

I’m definitely not taking that hideous-sounding particle dynamics physics course that Norm suggested I take. I went to the first class, and the professor greeted us with “Now, I assume you’ve all had Physics 230.” I had not. When it became clear that this was going to be very important to the class, I got up to leave. The professor stopped me and asked me about myself, and when I told him I’d signed up for the course because of an interest in fluid simulation, he told me they wouldn’t even touch on fluids. HUZZAH!
My Digital Figure Modeling class made it, and the times are actually quite nice! Monday 7:30-10:30pm (I’ll have to DVR Heroes and Studio 60) and Tuesday and Thursday 12-1:30. I talked with Scott and Laura about my Senior Project, and I’m really excited about it.
My “Myth in Ancient and Modern Society” class looks super cool, and my friends Lisa and Elaine are also taking it! Yay! Course description, for those curious: In this course we will explore the mythologies of selected peoples in the Ancient Near East, Africa, Asia, and Native North and South America and examine how the gods function in the life and belief of each society. The study of mythological texts will be accompanied, as much as possible, by illustrative slides that will show the images of these deities in art and ritual.

The Bad:

In order to avoid having Digital Figure Modeling class on Saturdays, I had to give up my Astrophysics course. Now I have to find a new Natural Science course, and they all sounded unbelievably dull. As all the other Natural Science courses that look interesting conflict with my Myth in Society course, which sounds awesome, I’m stuck with a Psych course called “Judgments and Decisions” (Judgments, decisions under certainty and uncertainty, problem solving, logic, rationality, and moral thinking.) But I’d rather take that than give up Myth in Society, so it’s all good.

The Neutral:

I’m giving up the Computer Vision class. It looked interesting and valuable, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to take five classes this semester, with my senior project and everything.

January 9, 2007January 17, 2015

Incontestable Fact: If Ko were a stuffed, dead chicken, she’d be the hottest stuffed, dead chicken EVER.

January 8, 2007January 17, 2015

Several people have asked me for the reading list from last semester’s amazing Feminist Fairy Tales class, so here it is!

The First Class
Early Versions: “Bluebeard” (Charles Perrault), “Beauty and the Beast” (Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont).
Revisions: The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter)
Essays: “Notes from the Frontline” (Angela Carter), and “When We Dead Awaken: Women’s Writing as Re-Vision” (Adrienne Rich).

Cinderella
Early Versions: “Yeh-hsien” (Chinese), “Cat Cinderella” (Giambattista Basile), “Cinderella” (Charles Perrault), “Cinderella” (Brothers Grimm)
Revisions: Disney, “Ashputtle” (Angela Carter), “Ashputtle” (Peter Straub), “Cinderella” (Anne Sexton), “Cinderella” (Broumas).
Essay: “America’s Cinderella” (Jane Yolen).

Snow White
Early Versions: “The Young Slave” (Basile), “Snow White” (Grimm), “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree” (Jacobs)
Revisions: Disney, White as Snow (Tanith Lee), “Snow, Glass, Apples” (Neil Gaiman), “Snow White” (Broumas), “Snow White” (Sexton), “Snow White to the Prince” (Delia Sherman).

Little Red Riding Hood
“Little Red Riding Hood” (Perrault), “Little Red Cap” (Grimm), The False Grandmother (Italo Calvino), Golden Flower and the Bear (Chiang Mi), “The Story of Grandmother” (Delarue).
Revisions: “Little Red Riding Hood” (James Thurber), Company of Wolves (movie), “Little Red Riding Hood” (Broumas).
Essay: Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (Zipes).

Sleeping Beauty
Early Versions: “Sun, Moon, and Talia” (Basile), “Sleeping Beauty” (Perrault), Brier Rose (Grimm).
Revisions: “Briar Rose” (Anne Sexton), Thorns (Tanith Lee).
Essay: “Tactics of Revisionary Mythopoesis” (Blau DuPlessis).

Rapunzel
Early Versions: “Petrosinella” (Basile), “Rapunzel” (Schultz), “Rapunzel” (Grimm).
Revisions: “Rapunzel” (Anne Sexton), “Root of the Matter” (Gregory Frost).

The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
Early Version: “The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf” (Hans Christian Andersen)
Revision: The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf (Kathryn Davis)

Donkeyskin
Early Versions: “The She-Bear” (Basile), “Donkeyskin” (Perrault), “All Fur” (Grimm), “The Princess in a Suit of Leather” (Bushnaq).
Revisions: Deerskin (Robin McKinley), The Armless Maiden introduction (Terri Windling), “Allerleiraugh” (Jane Yolen), “Donkeyskin” (Windling).
Essay: “Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleiraugh: The Reality of the Fairy Tale” (Helen Pilinovsky).

Hansel and Gretel
Early Version: “Hansel and Gretel” (Grimm)
Revisions: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (Louise Murphy), “Gingerbread” (Buffy episode), “Hansel and Gretel” (Sexton).

Witches Abroad (Terry Pratchett)

Beauty (Sheri S. Tepper)

12 Dancing Princesses and The Snow Queen
Early Versions: “The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes” (Grimm), “The Snow Queen” (Andersen).
Revisions: “Twelve Dancing Princesses” (Sexton), “The Girl Detective” (Kelly Link), “Travels with the Snow Queen” (Kelly Link), The Ice Puzzle (Catherynne Valente).

January 8, 2007January 17, 2015

Exactly two weeks from now, I’ll be watching The Dresden Files on Sci-Fi. If you’re not, you’d better have a good excuse. (Hint: If “Desperate Housewives” is your excuse, watch the rerun at 11/10c. :D )

And this Saturday, I’ll be seeing Wicked on Broadway! Bweeeeeeeeeeeee!

January 6, 2007January 17, 2015

This is a surprise! Jennifer Morrison and actor Jesse Spencer are engaged! Yes, Cameron and Chase on House. Also, Gina Torres and Laurence Fishburne are expecting a baby! Good for them, doing their duty as really, really pretty people to fill the world with more really, really pretty babies. :D

January 6, 2007January 17, 2015

Hey, Alanis! Say one of your ears got infected shortly after you got them pierced, and you’ve been faithfully taking care of it for months with Bactine and Neosporin. Then upon returning home for Winter Break, you went to the dermatologist to get allergy testing, only to find out that it was not Nickel as you suspected you were allergic to, but two substances that happen to be found in Neosporin and Bactine.

I’d say that’s ironic.

January 2, 2007January 17, 2015

Happy Year of Two James Bond!

That’s not going to get old until February, at least.

I decided to do a hybrid between the two 2006 recap memes floating around. Rather than filling out a survey, I’m doing a little summary for each month, starting with the first sentence of the first post of each month. I’m a rebel.

January 1st: “Back from Island Hop #1!”
The year began in Greece, the best vacation ever. I met Neil Gaiman, I got to hang out with Rebecca, and I was cast in Little Shop of Horrors in an ensemble role for the first time in my life. Classes for the new semester: Proving Things: Algebra, Digital Figure Modeling, Intro to Algorithms, Crime Cinema of France and Italy, Independent Study in Fluid Simulation.
February 1st: “AARGH!”
Little Shop was canceled. After a full semester, Ko and I got the massive hole in our wall fixed, and we got a second hatch in our bathroom ceiling. During the winter Olympics, Ko and I decided that Snowboardcross would be so much cooler if athletes could set each other on fire. I did my first piece of Dresden Files fanart: Thomas and Bianca.
March 1st: “Renata linked me to the iTunes Signature Maker, which is just neat!”
I saw Jon Stewart, Kevin Smith, and Margaret Cho in a period of 8 days. While I was in New York for the filming of The Daily Show, I got to hang out with Jimmy, a friend from the PA Shindigs. Later that month, I went to a housewarming party for other Shindig friends, Courtney and Ryan. Also in attendance were Shindig hosts Kristin and Paul, and the fannish family of Suze, Bob, and Sami. We almost outnumbered Courtney’s relatives!
April 1st: “New Frankenmix prompts!”
Thought I had a date. Didn’t. Have decided this is entirely due to The Boy’s total blindness, as I am a hottie and totally dateable. Stupid boy(s). The month perked up, however, when my film class won the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival with our short film, Zeyen and Nazia. Ko had a birthday, and I was revealed to have ninjalike powers with balloon animals. I managed to get Proven Guilty (the first Dresden book to come out since I started reading the series) ten days before it was supposed to be released. That night, I went to Marcelina’s dance concert, then promptly dropped said book into a rain puddle helping a blind man board a bus. Stephen Colbert did his White House Correspondents Dinner Speech-Thing and was awesome.
May 1st: “Linked from Croupier, Berkeley on iTunesU.”
Still chasing The Boy. I was The Idiot. I finally shared Milton Goldthwait with the internet, further proving I need a boyfriend. I was funny. Exam period was hellish. After classes let out, I turned over my stuff to CollegeBoxes, some of it never to be seen again. Mom and I went to New York, where we saw Sweeney Todd and The Color Purple and lots of great museums. The Dresden Files’ backdoor pilot got picked up as a TV series. I got a new chair. Stephen Colbert’s team photomanipped Hugh Laurie into the Wonder Woman costume. I accurately predicted Season 3 of Lost. Saw X3 and invented original character Toastito.
June 1st: “I recently saw Over the Hedge, and I loved it.”
We had our first preview of the Dresden Files TV show, and I fell in love with the actress playing Murphy when she slammed Harry into the hood of a car. I attended the third (and last) Pennsylvania Shindig, which was crazy crazy fun. Performed Serenifly: The Musical (written by Jimmy and me) and Wizard People, Dear Reader. Got an internship at ReelFX! Saw the Dallas Equality Now screening of Serenity. Watched the entirety of Battlestar Galactica (the new series, I mean). Got my ears pierced, and still feel ambivalent about this decision.
July 1st: “Handy!”
Worked. At Job, listened to like fifty audio books. Discovered Psych, which is great. Went to the SIGGRAPH convention, which was too cool for words!
August 1st: “There are not enough EEEs in SQUEEE! to describe today.”
The other half of the SIGGRAPH convention, hence the EEEs. Wrote Dresden Files limericks. My laptop was in danger of exploding. I spent a weekend at my aunt and uncle’s house in Colorado, which was wonderful. Returned to school, only to find that CollegeBoxes had lost three of my boxes. Only one would be found.
September 1st: “The Illusionist is getting great reviews, as it well should.”
Class Schedule: Feminist Fairy Tales (best class ever), Film Analysis and Methods, Physics II, Computer Graphics (the computer science side), and Calculus III. Hold me. It quickly became apparent that this semester would be a living hell. Anyway, I cooked stuff! This lasted a couple weeks. I fought the urge to set CollegeBoxes on fire. Was very, very ill one night, and the next morning was stabbed repeatedly by incompetent nurses. Body was intimidated into getting healthy again. Later that month, I discovered that the comics shop across the street had started stocking new stuff, and I wouldn’t need to take the bus to 20th street whenever I needed my fix. Began Obsessively Early Planning for Sappy Lincoln Narratives Road Trip ’07.
October 1st: “Aaaaaand CollegeBoxes can’t find my stuff.”
Met John Hodgman, Jonathan Coulton, David Rees, and Amy Sedaris. Then the next day, met Nancy Pelosi, Allyson Schwartz, and Lois Murphy, and got to be (in the background) on teevee! Renata sent me hobo brownies, which were delicious. After two months, CollegeBoxes gave up on the search for my stuff, then stiffed me fifty five bucks on the claims check. So I was funny again. Wrote a revision of “Cinderella” that was awesome and also worrisome. I attended a Halloween party in York, hosted by Shindiggers Courtney and Ryan, and attended by various awesome people. For the first Halloween ever, I didn’t make a new costume. This was a source of much despair, though it did mean I got to wear my awesome Sally costume again, so it wasn’t too tragic.
November 1st: “Once more, into the breach!”
I met the Brothers Quay, who are twin geniuses. Five-year-old me wrote a recommendation for Ko to the Marshall scholarship. Voted Democrat! Took really cute senior pictures. Converted many to Discworld when we read Witches Abroad in my Fairy Tales class. Celebrated my 22nd birthday with my family, as it was on Thanksgiving this year. Wrote a paper teasing out similarities between Whedon’s Serenity and Ford’s The Searchers.
December 1st: “I just slept for tweeeeelve houuuuuurs.”
A week after turning it in, reread Serenity/Searchers paper for coherence, now that I’d had actual sleep. It was awesome and ultimately A-worthy. Took a few hours off from the Semester of Hell to enjoy Cursor’s Fury, which was a book of EEEEE. Made Rice Krispie Treats. Went to NY with Kristin for Jimmy’s birthday and gave him a My Little Pony Balloon. Met John Cassaday, who thought I was funny. I still melt slightly when I think of this. At midnight one night, Ko and I went out for spontaneous pie. Jim Butcher commented on my fanart, Sci-Fi released fifty thousand Dresden TV promos, and JKR announced the totally lame title for the 7th Harry Potter book. My wizard named Harry could beat up your wizard named Harry. Renata and friends came to town, which was merry. New Year’s Eve plans fell through, because “excluding Priscilla” has apparently replaced baseball as the national pasttime, not that this is the subject for a future rant or anything.

Good Riddance, 2006! Bring on 2007! I’ve eaten my black eyed peas this time (they didn’t have any in Greece) so all should be good. Resolutions include:

Spend more time drawing
Spend less time rereading/rewatching stuff I’ve already read/watched fifty times.
Exercise regularly
Cook more often, and healthily
Figure out what the heck I’m doing with my life.

January 1, 2007January 17, 2015